Burn and Shiver

As a critic, I place about as much faith in the 'rating scale as an institution' as I do in ...

As a critic, I place about as much faith in the 'rating scale as an institution' as I do in the fidelity of my overseas liaison, Papillon Soo Soo. That's not to say that Pitchfork's mandatory inclusion of a numerical rating with its reviews isn't justifiable. One glance at the site's readership will reveal that all advertisements and promotional gimmicks for which our existence is a vehicle are geared towards your prototypical inner-city collegiate male-- children of the instant-gratification generation who want as little as possible to do with the kind of painfully long literary passages they encounter on a daily basis. For those with an aversion to the lengthy texts and editorial fodder which act as a smokescreen for our more corporate endeavors, we provide a randomly selected numerical approximation of an album's greatness by which your preconceptions of music are to be realigned accordingly.

The preceding example of depurated cynicism has more purpose than simply illustrating the effects of insomnia on your humble narrator's keyboarding. In reviewing Azure Ray's latest collection of unexcitable meditations on lost love, Burn and Shiver, my chosen rating of 6.8 will signify to many that there has been a drop in quality since group's 2001 eponymous debut for Warm Records, an album which Pitchfork deemed a 7.0. But nothing could be further from the truth, as Burn and Shiver finds Bright Eyes/Japancakes/Moby collaborators Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor improving upon nearly every aspect of their essential formula.

While Azure Ray's debut boasted one or two truly moving songs-- most notably, the pensive ballad "Displaced"-- it suffered from a horrible case of homogeny, as many tracks seemed mere variations on the group's favored structural idiom: the mid-tempo acoustic waltz. The overbearing sense of sameness to be found throughout didn't lend the disc to repeated, discriminating listens.

Burn and Shiver remedies many of the group's past transgressions, as our favorite Eric Bachmann understudies have recently discovered the joy of incorporating percussive elements and-- in the instance of the excellent "New Year"-- small flirtations with IDM into their sonic spectrum. No, the girls still haven't allowed Songs from a Room to leave their turntable, but on tracks such as "How You Remember" and the stellar "Raining in Athens," they come closer than ever to wielding an emotional potency like master Cohen's.

Yet, in spite of the progress to be found on Burn and Shiver, the album brims with brilliance unrealized, as many songs still refuse to fulfill the moments they seem fully capable of. This could be attributed to the fact that the girls have yet to author a lyrical passage worthy of their absolutely gorgeous vocals, often devolving into forcefully evocative lines that wax nostalgic of adolescent summers long past, et al. Were the arrangements more dynamic, such criticisms would be forgiveable, but Fink and Taylor's compositions often disengage the listener after a few minutes, generally resulting in unintentional drones.

It's refreshing to hear two clearly talented artists beginning to inch out of the shadow of their influences, however long it may be. Though I'm not expecting their magnum opus any time soon, a few more albums of similar consistency will yield enough individual moments to comprise a satisfying body of work. Maybe by that time, Azure Ray will have come into their own.